Internet access is becoming ubiquitous. Home, office, and school are no longer the only sites from which users gain access. Increasingly, internet access can also be obtained from terminals at airport kiosks, coffee shops, photocopy centers, city halls, and other non-traditional sites (“public sites”).
When accessing the internet from such public sites, users may be required to utilitize an Internet Service Provider (ISP) associated with that terminal, or they may be given the option of signing-on using the customary ISP they use at home or work. In either case, a fee is typically charged for such public access.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, costs associated with accessing the internet from a public site are borne by one or more sponsors. The internet terminal thus sponsored may, in exchange, be limited in the internet domains it is capable of browsing. For example, if the terminal is sponsored by an automobile manufacturer, the terminal may be limited to browsing that manufacturer's web pages. Browsing of certain other domains may also be permitted (for example, the web pages at the weather.com and cnn.com domains). But browsing of web sites associated with competitors of the sponsor may be restricted.
Some such terminals are equipped with optical input devices, such as web cams, permitting users to present physical objects to the device (e.g., magazine advertisements or product packaging), and be linked to corresponding web pages. Such arrangements are further detailed in the cited '422 application; such optically-based linking services are offered by the present assignee under the Digimarc MediaBridge service mark.
According to another aspect of the invention, web cards (like pre-paid phone cards) may be sold at retail establishments (or issued by libraries), to permit web browsing from compliant terminals. The cards may have fixed or programmable restrictions, e.g., preventing browsing of adult content web sites.
The foregoing and additional features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description.